Evaluating Customer Service

We all know what constitutes good customer service…right? I think we do, but we don’t always provide it.  Good customer service requires more energy! Smiling! Making eye contact! Active listening! It can be exhausting.

At Georgia State University Library, we have a customer service policy that describes the service our patrons can expect from our employees. We provide regular customer service training that is unique to our customer service policy, but we don’t have a method in place for evaluating customer service.

We currently are planning a mystery shopper evaluation program. Undercover “patrons” will visit our in-person, virtual, and phone service points and evaluate the service provided. We plan to use a rubric as the evaluation tool, and most of the rubric items are based on tenets of the customer service policy.

What methods have you used to evaluate the customer service provided by your employees?  Did you have trouble separating reference skills from customer service? Please add a comment (the comments link is just under the post title) and join in the discussion!

Jennifer@GSU